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Time to start a new company up and invest heavily in it, VC backed, at scale, revolutionizing the industry. Let's call it AsphaltX.
by antonhalim 6y ago
Time to start a new company up and invest heavily in it, VC backed, at scale, revolutionizing the industry. Let's call it AsphaltX.
- wongarsu 6y agoYou joke, but there are plenty of VC backed companies trying to revolutionize road surfaces. The most famous are the various companies trying to add solar panels to roads. Of course Asphalt is pretty awesome on balance, so most of these startups fail spectacularly.
- UnpossibleJim 6y agoI was actually looking for the comment about the solar roadways in here. I know they are expensive up front, but can lead into charging stations to help offset their cost in the long run (if people are willing to go along with either state run charging stations or privatized roadways). The question is, have there been studies about their environmental impact over X amount of time? I think it was Sweden who put in a length of roadway to test their viability for use.
- wongarsu 6y agoThe idea in principle is solid, most roads are empty most of the time and just sit in the sun. But making a surface durable, keeping the it clean and transparent but also providing good grip in all weather conditions are all hard problems. Solutions to one of them often make the other two worse, and many attempts choose materials that fail spectacularly at all three when tested in the real world.
- MayeulC 6y agoMaybe we just need to put those solar panels between train tracks, then? Still a lot of unused surface, can use the rails as conductors, easy to clean using a special car. The downside is that it makes it hard to pour ballast. It also doesn't help at all for road surface (lower their cost or replace "polluting" asphalt).
- saagarjha 6y ago> can use the rails as conductors But then bad things happen if you touch them…